Varna, Bulgaria

Once again, I fail at keeping up with this blogging. We are no 6 days away from Boston, MA. Thinking way back to Bulgaria, it was an amazing surprise.

Many people on the ship were resistant to Bulgaria as it was the replacement to Alexandria, Egypt before we ventured on this trip due to the unrest. We ported in Varna right on the Black Sea. The people of Bulgaria were like no other. I keep saying that the people in these ports have been the nicest, but by far – Bulgarians win. The first day we reached Varna we didn't do much venturing. A lot of the time we kind of just try to fish around for some wifi to figure out something to do in the country (if we don't already have plans). I just kept thinking about getting to Istanbul. After passing through the Bosporus the excitement was overwhelming. I also couldn't wait to see my cousin Kayla. We walked a little bit along the coast where there seemed to be an endless strip of restaurants.  We walked up the pathways that just lead us through a gorgeous park and passed through the lace market. There were rows of women selling hand crocheted table runners, sweaters, little booties,  and figurines.

(I started this 6 days away from Boston, and it has now been a month since I've left the MV explorer. However, I am determined to finish this because I feel it is a great way to remember all that I've done)

I'm extremely thankful for pictures, for without them I'm not sure if I'd be able to remember everything that I did in the last 3 ports.

But, like I said, Bulgaria was a huge surprise, much like Croatia. The only thing that I had planned to do was a cooking class but that wasn't until the last day of the trip. After the first day there was a huge buzz around the ship about bungee jumping. Never in my life did I think that I would consider it, but for some reason – the lack of activity prompted me to think about it. The next day, a few of us ventured to the Great Mall to watch the final Harry Potter movie. I was unable to go see it in Greece, so Bulgaria was the next best option. It was amazing. Talking with my friends afterwards, it really did feel like it was the end of my childhood cause we had really grown up watching these movies (and reading the books). It was funny though, because on the way in we hadn't even thought about the movie being in Bulgarian. Luckily it was in English with Bulgarian subtitles. It was getting a bit late so we headed back to the ship to hang out for fear of the Mafia. (HAHA okay, not really) SAS really did emphasize the influence of the Mafia in Bulgaria though, so it was it was a little intimidating.

Back at the ship I was really debating bungee jumping, aside from the fact that I'm afraid of heights I was determined to do it. I just needed to find someone willing to go with me. A few other friends decided to go out to Golden Sands and find some stuff to do out there so we all spent the day with an amazing taxi driver who graciously showed us around for the day at an extremely low cost. He gave us histories and became our translator for little shops and currency exchanges. Driving to Golden Sands we went along beautiful black sea coastlines and on the way back to Varna we drove though mountain's filled with sunflowers. I had never seen so many sunflower fields. I still regret not getting a picture in the sunflowers, but it gives me a reason to go back. I was able to convince another girl to go bungee with me so we all shuffled our way to the bridge. The taxi driver had been brining kids there from the ship the past couple days and he knew exactly what we were talking about. About a 7 minute drive from the ship we approached a bridge on a highway passing 15 other SASers and a dinky yellow tent on the side of the bridge we turned around and headed towards it. I don't know what came over me that willed me to want to jump, but I was determined to do it, both my friend Danielle and I were. As we signed our lives away nerves were definitely not on my side. Watching guys jump was easy, they just effortlessly did it, many of the girls however had huge hesitations and one girl I know got up onto the ledge and she just couldn't do it. After an hour of waiting and 55leva it was my turn to get the gear on as friends were snapping pictures of me freaking out. After a 30second run through with a Bulgarian man who made sure I knew how to get back up, I found myself climbing up the ledge. All our lives people tell us not to do that and here I was willing and ready (sort of) to jump. Now, let me tell you – there is a HUGE difference in confidence when standing behind the rail, to standing on it. It didn't help that the girl who jumped before I did cried. I wanted off; I didn't think I could do it. 55meters up, and hour wait and I was about to chicken out. After a second of hearing the encouragement of my friends and telling myself I'd be disappointed if I didn't do it I just leaned forward and jumped.

Before you know it, it's over. All I can remember is this huge sense of relief when I felt the bungee tug on my ankles and I knew I wasn't going to die. It was an amazing rush, and I'd do it all over again given the chance. In that moment afterwards I was so extremely proud of myself for overcoming a fear on this already incredible journey. It was such a high, indescribable. 

Later that night my roommate and I met up with some friends Kat & Mia to try and find the music festival that was going on. We happily wondered around Varna and through the park looking for it. We heard music coming from an outdoor amphitheater in the center of the park and we thought what the heck? It was supposed to be traditional music, but we went anyway. We ended up catching the very end of some Bulgarian rock group of some sort in this amphitheater full of hundreds of people singing in unison. It was pretty epic. It wasn't until later that we found out we were looking in the complete wrong place for the music festival, however we did stumble upon something equally wonderful. From there we went back down towards the beach and found more SASers at bars, and clubs. We got into a club and had some fun dancing and hanging out when some Bulgarian rapper came on and… Well, let's just say it was interesting, made for some crazy stories though. Making our way back to the ship we found some bomb gyros and just had some nice laughs about the night.

My last day in Varna, I hung out with Miranda who I'd met with the group I traveled with in Greece. We had some interesting times in Greece and never really got to chill after that and this was the only time we had due to FDPs and other trips. We walked around the lace market which contained older women selling anything and everything imaginable made of lace and a lot of crocheted things. We wandered up through the city center and found ourselves in some really sketchy places full of police to which end we kept referencing the mafia. We also found one of her profs in the city center standing outside of some tv filming of what is almost like America's Got Talent. It was hilarious! After getting lost, and trying to find our way back the ship I found the coolest little place on a side street that sold hand woven woolen blankets and things like that and ended up buy a bunch of stuff to take home.

We were out all morning and I had to be back at the ship because I had a trip that I had signed up for which ended up being one of my favorite parts of Bulgaria, aside from the bungee. I was able to do a cooking class. Apparently we were supposed to have gone to like a little village and learn the old style cooking but we were unable to do so - so we were moved to a 4 star hotel in Golden Sands taught by the head chefs there. It was so much fun! We learned about spices and customs specific to Bulgaria and were given spices, and a mini cook book with recipes with everything we'd made in them. Both myself, and my friend Jade made the  most of the experience and took it all in.. Literally.. We ate A LOT.

I didn't know what to expect out of Bulgaria, but it was some place I'm glad I did get the chance to go to, because had it not been for this, I don't know if I would have ever made it there.